Ok, so people jump directly to the conclusion that this was introduced because the CCP asked for it. Yet, if that was the case why limit it only? Why not ask for a complete stop? Is there a case where a protestor benefits from AirDrop but only if it’s more than 10 minutes?
It's pretty simple: sometimes people do want to receive airdrops from anybody in a state approved way - when someone is not your contact, but you want them to send you something. Your distant uncle took a photo at a family gathering, for example.
Thus, previously, users in China could set their phone to be able to receive airdrops from anybody, all the time.
But, problem! Now they can receive information antithetical to CCP propaganda, anywhere they go. On a bus, on a train, at the supermarket, at a grocery store, literally anywhere, they could be exposed to ad-hoc free thought via airdrop. Perhaps something like: "protest tonight at the grocery store! They can't arrest all of us!"
In response, now iPhone users in China can still choose to receive airdrops from anybody, preserving the valid use case, but only for 10 minutes after pressing the button. They are now safe from uncensored information for the rest of the day. Train, bus, supermarket, etc. The airdrop protest invite is now dead.
A complete ban of receiving airdrops from anyone would cause outrage - it would be removing a useful feature entirely. But the timer is a clever way to neuter its position as a social communication platform without taking the useful feature away.
This is how effective social control works - you can't just shackle everyone, you have to give them the impression of freedom.
It's a 10 minute limit on receiving, which needs manual intervention to reset.
That pretty much kills Airdrop as an open P2P communication channel (the "undesired" usage) while still enabling one off intentional file transfers (the primary Airdrop use case).
So a 10 minute limit easily kills 99% of "bad" usage without impacting common usage, leading to less resistance/complaints from average users. Killing Airdrop full stop would have greater push back/outrage, with only marginal improvement against the undesired usage.
Q: How does 10 min limit kill the P2P communciation usage?
A: Imagine your cell phone could only receive calls from non-contacts for 10 min. After which you had to remember to push a button to re-allow calls for another 10m, rinse/repeat. With that UX, the chance you ever successfully call or be called by a non-contact is near zero. People wouldn't opt-in frequently enough to have a reliable network.
I continue to be perplexed at the apparent backlash over "the Airdrop change". (The change which limits the visibility of the recipient to "Everyone" for a max of 10 minutes.) When I consider the technical details of Airdrop's capabilities and implementation details, it is my conclusion that Apple's change increases end user security and privacy, and is not at all the kind of thing that would benefit an authoritarian government.
I am seriously bothered that everyone seems to have the opposite reaction. Am I missing something obvious?
1) Is there any definitive evidence that "China" requested the change to limit Airdrop's discoverability to 10 minutes? What rationale would they have for requesting this specific change?
2) How is protestors use of AirDrop negatively affected by this change?
I do know that protesters attempt to send images to any available airdrop recipient, but on the other hand, these users devices are advertising their presence publicly, in many cases without the awareness of the user. Airdrop beacons cause enough trouble in public spaces as it is, that I'm surprised the feature was ever designed this way in the first place.
Anyone purposely looking to disseminate protest information already has many better ways to do it: a wireless hotspot with a splash page, for instance. IMO this focus on Airdrop is a red herring, and worse, may be based on a flawed premise.
Having it open to everyone for only a limited amount of time actually kind of seems like the right thing, but it's hard to come up with a legit explanation for why they rushed that change to China first.
Just to be clear, it's still possible to use AirDrop in China — the change was that you can't set your device to receive from 'Everyone' indefinitely. It's now limited to 10 minutes. I don't support this change, but we shouldn't conflate it with blocking AirDrop entirely, which would be much worse.
If that were true, Apple would just add limiting Airdrop to 10 minutes as an additional default option. Removing Always on airdrop was done because it's the only form of community communications that doesn't go through the Censors.
That's interesting that this was rolled out a few weeks ago, however the article also says:
> Apple won’t admit why this change is being made in China, but the peer-to-peer nature of AirDrop has made it popular for spreading anti-government protest material, and hopping into your settings every 10 minutes to re-enable the ability to receive AirDrop from strangers makes it a lot less useful for that.
Folks were using AirDrop to send anti-communist files or posters to others in a short range, resulting in a crackdown by the Chinese government on AirDrop and bluetooth file sharing. I believe Apple complied and implemented a 10-minute cool down on file sharing with strangers.
Unfortunately, <queue some made up story from Apple's PR team about how some soldier's lives were saved by limiting AirDrop time to exactly 10 minutes>.
I still don't understand why the use of AirDrop is necessary. These Chinese tourists have already crossed into Hong Kong, a land that currently enjoys freedom of speech. Why aren't traditional methods like banners or brochures or flyers be distributed to tourists from the mainland? Is AirDrop faster and more effective?
Protests have been around for far longer than AirDrop has existed. It seems AirDrop was being used to share posters and slogans and perhaps some basic information, not as some kind of instant messaging app. If Chinese iPhone users are anything like American iPhone users, I'd guess that most wouldn't want to receive a ton of iPhone notifications for unsolicited content.
I support this change. It's a simple but significant improvement to the basic usability of AirDrop. It's conceivable that Apple came up with this simple usability improvement, publicly announced it, then rolled it out deliberately to hamper the efforts of protesters in China, but I think it's more likely to be a coincidence.
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